


time heals all wounds

by AmbientMagic



Category: The Posterchildren - Kitty Burroughs
Genre: Amputation, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Gen, Government Experimentation, Heavy Angst, Triggers Warnings for:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 02:19:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12159615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbientMagic/pseuds/AmbientMagic
Summary: Zip finds out why Mal has so many scars





	time heals all wounds

**Author's Note:**

> this is some Really Heavy Stuff, thematically speaking. The narrative doesn't go into gory detail, but there's heavy speculation about what sort of "training" Mal endured and uh. It's really upsetting? I'm upset?? But this is also pretty in line with canon so??

“Do they ever hurt?”

The question slipped out without her noticing, and Zip immediately wished she could take it back.  She and Mal were better friends now, yes, but she knew from the way he pulled at his sleeves, the way he turned away from other people’s odd looks, that her partner didn’t like people looking at the scars that covered his body.

It’s just.  Well.  Zip worried, and the question was vocal before she’d finished thinking it.

Mal froze in his whittling, the last curl of wood falling from his knife and hitting the floor silently.  Zip forced herself to sit still in the agonizing pause that followed.

“No,” Mal finally said, a catch in his voice — regret, almost.  “Once I heal, the scars don’t hurt anymore.  But…”

He trailed off.  _ Holdstillholdstillholdstillholdstillholdstill,  _ Zip chanted in her head — it was so hard but Mal spooked so  _ easy _ _ — _

“...I still feel all the pain, from the wound.  And as it heals, I feel all the pain of that as well.  Once,” and here he laughed quietly, “I broke my leg falling from a tree.  It healed crooked and I was forced to rebreak it so it would heal properly.”  He pulled up his left pant leg, pointing to a jagged slash across his shin.  “This is where the bone jutted out.”

Zip peered a little closer.  There were a couple of other deep, wide scars like that one, and many, many smaller scars from lesser cuts, but…

“What about that one?”

There was a thin, even scar stretching right across Mal’s ankle, all the way around.  From what Zip had been learning under Mal’s tutelage, it went right in between his leg bones and his ankle bones.

“They wanted to see if it would grow back.”  Mal’s tone stayed the same, but his eyes grew more distant.  “It did, obviously.”

“They?” Things went slow for Zip, just a bit, the way they did when she was running.  Somehow it made it easier to wait for Mal’s response.  

“The BPHA.  When my powers manifested, it was vital that they test the limits of my healing abilities.  Once their tests were complete, I was released back into my mother’s custody.”  Mal’s voice stayed even as he spoke, like he was reciting a story he’d told before.  “Most Alphas undergo at least a year of rigorous testing so we can control our powers safely.”   

“How old were you when you found it?  Your posterpower?”

“Zipporah, I don’t — ”

“How old?” she pressed.  She didn’t want to scare Mal, she didn’t, but she  _ needed  _ to know.

He sighed.  “I was four,” he said quietly.  “Mother says I tripped and hit my head.  Hard.  Before I could even start crying, she saw it heal before her eyes.  I don’t remember that, of course, but she took me to the clinic to make sure I had healed properly, and the trials proceeded from there.”

“So you were four when they started those tests,” Zip said.  “Four years old and they start experimenting on you.  How long did the tests take?”

“Zipporah,” Mal interjected.  “It’s  _ fine.   _ I was very young, I don’t even remember the tests or the surgeries.”

“ _ Surgeries?” _

“They had to know if I reacted to any kind of physical trauma, or just accidents.  A few rounds of surgery — ”

Zip was nearly shaking with anger.  “It wasn’t  _ surgery  _ Mal, it was an  _ amputation,  _ you know the difference, what kind of people would — _ ” _

Mal interrupted her again.  “Zipporah! It’s fine _ ,  _ it was a  _ necessary  _ medical trial, they were very methodical and I am  _ in perfect health.   _ It’s in the past.  It’s important, if I’m to be a public hero, to know the extent of my posterpower.  Once they saw that the fingers would regenerate the next logical step was to — ”

“The fingers.”  Zip spit the words out through chattering teeth.  She was so angry she vibrated, now, and it was starting to scare her, in a distant sort of way.  Mal kept talking, something about adrenaline levels and cellular regeneration and the  _ idea  _ of being hurt, rather than the  _ reality,  _ and something something with or without anesthesia, and allowing other subjects to test their own powers, and...

Zip barely heard a word.  Her mind was whirling, imagining a tiny little Mal (somehow still in the same dark blue hoodie) in a sterile white room, doctors strapping down his arm.  What would someone do to test “healing powers”?  Zip knew that Mal could heal cuts, broken bones, and, apparently, lost limbs.  What about sunburns? Frostbite? Dehydration, starvation, suffocation, electrocution, poisoning, blood loss… There were so many ways a person could be hurt, she knew now from the case files she studied in class.  

Could the BPHA have tested them all?

Mal had stopped talking, noticing that Zip was listening even less than usual.  “Zipporah?  Are you hungry?  You can run to that trashy fast food place you like if you are.”

“How long?”

He turned fully to face her, puzzled.  “What do you mean?”  Zip frowned.  Usually Mal was good at figuring out what she meant, even when she was talking about, well, him.

“How long were you with the BPHA?  When did they give you back?”

Mal was quiet for a long moment.  Zip waited.  This was too important — _ Mal  _ was too important — for her to fidget it away.  

“I started first block when I was eight,” he finally said.  “I’d been living with Mother for about two years by then.  I don’t remember anything before that.”

“You don’t re _ mem _ — ”

“Zipporah.”  The weight in his voice halted her momentum.  “Please.  I.  I know you’re concerned, and I am grateful for that.  But… The past is in the past.  I’d rather concentrate on the future.

“I realize that some of the more...  rigorous aspects of my training can be… alarming,” he continued, feeling his way forward carefully.  “But it was necessary, and now it is done.  I am here, healthy and none the worse for wear.  I’m  _ fine,  _ Zip.  Just fine.”

The use of her nickname startled Zip out of her anger more effectively than Mal’s reassurances did.  She looked closer at her partner.  There was a different set to Mal’s jaw than usual, an empty look on his face that she didn’t like.  She mumbled an affirmative and let Mal move the topic away to their training pattern, their classes, the latest adventures Ernest was having with his partner.  

Zip was still seeing a baby version of Mal, bleeding and alone, scars pale against dark skin.  She looked at her friend, who still seemed so alone.  Not fine at all, if anyone asked her.

_ Never again,  _ she promised her Alpha silently.   _ I won’t let  _ anyone  _ take you while I’m around. _


End file.
